


love, do you remember my name

by glass_icarus



Category: Fionavar Tapestry - Kay
Genre: Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:32:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glass_icarus/pseuds/glass_icarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin and Paul, as requested; a series of vignettes following their friendship over the years. [PG-13/R?] Written for <a href="http://riverlight.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://riverlight.livejournal.com/"><b>riverlight</b></a> for Yuletide 2006.</p><p>A/N: Many thanks to <a href="http://lynnmonster.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://lynnmonster.livejournal.com/"><b>lynnmonster</b></a> for her enthusiastic and very prompt betas! Also, many thanks to <a href="http://riverlight.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://riverlight.livejournal.com/"><b>riverlight</b></a> for requesting and allowing me to play in such a lovely fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love, do you remember my name

**i. pre-raphaelite grace**

"Rachel," says Kevin over the stereo, looking over the rim of his wineglass.

"Rachel," Paul agrees.

The smile in his voice is incandescent even in the dark, illuminating Kevin's room with a love not for him. For the first time in their years-long friendship, Kevin toys with the idea of being jealous.

The music pauses, a quiet breath before the pure, clear notes of the second movement pour into the room, weaving Paul's name in such love that Kevin cannot find any bitterness in himself for this quiet, unassuming girl who holds Paul's heart in her hands.

He raises his glass in a salute Paul cannot see, and steps aside for her: Rachel, whose music is a gift (whether to or from God, Kevin cannot quite decide), whose presence lights Paul from within; Rachel, whose love for him is so deeply resonant with Kevin's own. "_Mazel tov_," he says, voice light and merry, deeply sincere, and Paul laughs - so easily, now, God, the sound of it.

"Thanks, Kev."

Their glasses clink lightly, hands reaching out easily as breath despite the darkness, and Kevin closes his eyes at the crisp, clean taste of the wine as it slides down his throat. _Oh, bright star, take care. Take care._

 

**ii. falling stars**

The phone call comes at two in the morning, and Paul's voice is so strange, so cold. _Hospital_ and _accident_ and _Rachel_, and Kevin's heart leaps into his throat. He sprints down the stairs, nearly falling, the sound of it bringing his father from the kitchen, a cup of tea in hand.

"Paul?" he asks, his voice, as always, unhurried and sweet. Kevin nods, then shakes his head, patting his pockets frantically until his father tosses him the keys.

"I'm sorry, Abba, later -"

He's in the car and revving the engine before the door has closed.

\--

The hospital lights are harsh, unforgiving. Paul is standing by the waiting room door, a fluttering nurse anxiously telling him to sit down. Unsurprisingly, he pays no attention, grey eyes snapping to Kevin as he enters.

"What -"

"She's still in there," he says. Then, after an interminable pause, "She wasn't wearing a seat belt."

_No._ The sense of dread in Kevin's stomach is growing. "Paul -"

He stretches out a hand, shaking fingers brushing the torn edge of Paul's sleeve when he doesn't take it. _It was raining tonight_, he thinks, and watches Paul. The austere features are set, pale lips in a straight line, betraying nothing. The proud line of his shoulders remains unchanged. _Oh, Paul_, thinks Kevin, and waits.

\--

They are staring out the window when the doctor arrives, Paul at one corner and Kevin at the other. "I'm sorry," he says, wiping a tired hand across his brow. "We couldn't save her."

_Rachel._ The name hangs in the air, though neither of them makes a sound, resonant with grief and love, the bright notes of a cello sonata from long ago - _just yesterday._ Paul's grey eyes flicker, once, and the room seems suddenly cold, dark as the night outside despite the sharp fluorescent warmth. The doctor's eyes linger on them with a slight air of disbelief at their lack of reaction, and Kevin's fingers curl into a fist, nails biting into his palm. _Shut up,_ he wants to say, furiously, and _you know nothing about him, nothing,_ but before he can open his mouth, Paul does.

"It should have been me," Paul says, expressionless. He turns and walks out of the room, back straight. (No tears, Kevin will remember later, in nostalgia keen-edged with loss.)

For once in his life, Kevin has no idea what to say.

 

**iii. love, do you remember my name**

Diarmuid, when he arrives, is like a diamond. Dazzling in wit and manner, charming and cutting, fierce and bright and _sharp_ in a way that Kevin knows well and appreciates deeply. And yet, his lazy grace is too practiced, as if there is an absent someone for whom he is compensating, an uncompromising austerity he balances and combats playfully out of deeply ingrained habit. Much like himself, Kevin realizes with a start. _Who is Diarmuid's other half?_ he wonders, and then wonders if the prince even realizes he is still doing it, still acting as if he has some extra limb, long since severed.

("A peach," says Diarmuid, nibbling on Jennifer's wrist.)

He glances at Paul, out of habit, their eyes meeting for an instant. For the first time in a long while, the corner of Paul's mouth twists up in wry amusement, and Kevin's chest aches with the sudden unexpectedness of something regained, however small. He could kiss Diarmuid, he thinks, just for that.

Instead, he accepts Diarmuid's offer: first wine, and a convivial night visit; later, a ride south with Diarmuid's party to Cathal.

He thinks Paul might be doing all right, Diarmuid's mad seduction dragging his friend just a little further into the world, until they stop at the inn on the way back, and Paul walks away from a woman's tears. Doe-eyed, Kevin realizes when she comes downstairs; dark-haired, like Rachel.

("A song," asks Diarmuid; but the music is welling up in his throat, itching in his fingertips, long before Diarmuid's idle request.)

So he plays it, for the first time, in a world not his own - not his sorrow, not his melody, not even his guitar: Paul's name, Rachel's ghost, and hopes that his love can be even half as powerful within the shimmering notes.

(In the street, hand half-raised to open the door, Paul listens to the admission never meant for his ears, and makes his choice. _Oh, love,_ he thinks - to Kevin, to Rachel, to both - _remember, remember me._)

 

**iv. when june comes december**

Paul's voice is different, now, resonant with the power of the Tree and the God. _Twiceborn,_ Kevin thinks, whole in a way he has not been since Rachel, and yet still somehow nebulous and incomplete. He is difficult to look at, too bright when present and too distant when not. They rarely speak, nowadays, not when there are war strategies to be planned, councils at which they sit and try to absorb the sheer weight of the enemy's forces.

He knows Paul thinks of Jennifer often, of her child hidden away with Finn's mother. His own vows to her are still lodged deep in his heart, smoldering with rage and love and uselessness. How can he, Kevin, hope to attack Rakoth Maugrim when even Paul, with the Godwood's power, cannot? What use love, when Jennifer still cannot look at him, sometimes? He has never asked what manner of horror she has been subjected to, but he knows that somewhere there must be an image of their past, twisted and mutilated beyond recognition.

Kevin looks up at the evening sky, remembering the way Jennifer looked when Kim took them all through the space between the worlds, lying torn and broken at their feet. He remembers when she told them, queen-like, that she was keeping the child: Darien, son of Maugrim, balanced on the keenest edge between Light and Dark, something wild and unforeseen - Jennifer's son, and Guinevere's. Terribly, too, he remembers her face when they made love, long ago, before Fionavar, and she traced his brow with one finger and whispered _Paul?_ He remembers stilling, looking away, unable to meet the gentle kindness in her face. Golden girl, bright star, sweet and sharp and full of laughter; that was Jennifer, once upon a time. Jennifer, who offered something like peace, a different kind of love when he desperately needed to be loved. Jennifer, whose guarded heart was large enough to encompass the world, and Kevin, even though Kevin's world has always consisted primarily of Paul.

The first star appears as the light fades. He thinks of Paul, shadowy and withdrawn, and of Jennifer, alone, and wishes upon it with all his heart; an unselfish wish.

Paul's hand closes on his shoulder, and Kevin starts. Paul's face is grim, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled up despite the cold. _Does he even feel it?_ Kevin wonders, but Paul is speaking now, grey eyes dark and intensely focused on him for the first time in days.

"There's been an incident," says Paul, and, "We need to talk." His voice sounds like winter, like wind, the beating of a raven's wings.

 

**v. liadon**

Winter, winter, winter. The snow and ice are unrelenting, with no end in sight, and each day Kevin's stomach knots a little more in dread. Paul's eyes have a faraway look, all the time; guilt, Kevin knows, over the Dalrei's plight. Never mind that it isn't his fault; never mind that his power is not that of war; Paul shoulders the blame all the same. Ridiculously. Like Aileron.

If Kevin had any power, he knows, he would feel the same.

Kevin's eyes drift between the bonfire and Levon's sister, who reminds him a little of Jennifer, before she was ever Guinevere. He can feel Paul's eyes rest upon him for a moment, the weight of a gaze he cannot read, before he turns back to his conversation with Ivor. Levon's sister - he can't quite remember her name through the haze of mead sinking slowly into his bones - smiles, approaches him. Kevin lets her.

He does not look at Paul, before he goes.

\--

In the night, she names him, boar-marked and chosen. _Liadon._

Kevin thinks, involuntarily, of boar-testicles, and wonders how this can possibly be right. His skepticism must have shown, because she invokes the deep spiral of his lovemaking, the one thing he has never understood and always feared in himself. Goddess-lover. Chosen one. A revelation.

_This must be it_, he thinks, _this must be why_. All their history, his and Paul's; but Kevin is Hers, and She has never liked to share Her lovers.

The granting of a heart's desire, she says, and the blood thunders in his ears, a knowledge at once dark and bright, truth piercing him to the core. _Let it be enough,_ Kevin thinks, _let me be enough._

\--

At Midsummer, he is certain. There is no desire in him at all; something he has never known. Levon's sister comes to him again, eyes wide and brimming with tears, and he understands Paul's distance a little better, when he walked away from the girl at the inn. There is something in him not of this world, a calling latent in his blood, waiting to be spoken. His body thrums with possibility.

_Liadon,_ she whispers, as if she can't believe she's right, grief and hope welling up in her voice. She rises to kiss him once on the cheek, a blessing, then steps back, proud and straight, as he walks away.

Cafall meets him on the way, intelligent, sorrowful eyes trained upon him with a knowing gaze. "Good dog," says Kevin, fingers curling gently behind the dog's ears, and lets Cafall lead him. He remembers Paul's face as he greeted the dog; Paul's face as the dog greeted Arthur. He remembers Arthur's face, full of joy, deep laughter coming from the man whose very presence was marked by sorrow. _Companion._

The cave is not twenty feet from where Cafall stops, whining. Kevin dismounts, crouches before him to bestow a last caress. "Thank you," he whispers, and straightens. The dog's eyes follow him into the cave like a brand of shining courage against his back.

\--

Meeting the crone is like stepping into a fairytale in a way that stepping into Fionavar was not, Kevin muses distantly. His body moves with an unconscious certainty, here in the deep belly of the earth. There is no pain, when he lays his cheek open against the sharp rock; no surprise, as the crone collects her due - one kiss - and changes before his eyes. The fire ignites somewhere inside him, his heart alight with an infinite summer even as Midsummer takes hold of his body.

She is here.

Kevin closes his eyes and leaps.

_What is it you want?_ he hears as he falls, slowly, toward Her.

A thousand moments rush before his vision, of Jennifer, of Arthur, of Diarmuid and Aileron, of Ivor's children, of Kim, of Dave. Of Paul, and Paul again. _Not that,_ he tells Her, before She can reply. _I know I cannot have him, and I know why. I am yours, now and forever._

He can hear Her smile. _What is it, then, your heart's desire?_

Somewhere outside their conversation, his body approaches its climax; the summertide rising in his heart. _This_, he says. _An end to the winter._

He hears himself cry out, the bargain sealed in Her voice: _Then you shall have it, Kevin, my Liadon._

Even as he sees the ground approaching, faces his own mortality without fear, She tells him: _Know that he has loved you, Kevin. He has loved you all his life._

_Thank you_, he whispers, then _Abba_, and the rock rises up to meet him.


End file.
